Antipsychotics: to Take or to Leave?

[ShivaFan]

What the? I wouldn't take any of this crap. And I am sure there are "hangovers" just like drinking, but so mind controlling you don't even know you have a hangover.

You definitely have some sort of chemical imbalance. Probably from toxins you injested in the past, whatever the case it sounds like either toxins in your system or toxins passed onto the womb from your parents.

I woould work on trying to use methods to get toxins out of your system.

* sweating them out, like in a teepee with a camp fire going.

* drink glass of water mixed with tumeric (two spoonfuls) and **** out toxins.

* research herbal or vitamins that remove toxins from your system.

* study a foreign language.

* paint pictures, coloring books, or learn even fine art.

* get a pet small dog.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What the? I wouldn't take any of this crap. And I am sure there are "hangovers" just like drinking, but so mind controlling you don't even know you have a hangover.

You definitely have some sort of chemical imbalance. Probably from toxins you injested in the past, whatever the case it sounds like either toxins in your system or toxins passed onto the womb from your parents.

I woould work on trying to use methods to get toxins out of your system.

* sweating them out, like in a teepee with a camp fire going.

* drink glass of water mixed with tumeric (two spoonfuls) and **** out toxins.

* research herbal or vitamins that remove toxins from your system.

* study a foreign language.

* paint pictures, coloring books, or learn even fine art.

* get a pet small dog.

How about you study the subject some before giving such terrible advice! The absolute worst thing to do for a psychiatric patient is to tell them to quit taking their medications! You NEVER tell them their medications are poisoning them and is probably the cause of their problems! A detox plan WILL NOT treat bipolar disorder!

 

[FTNZ]

What the? I wouldn't take any of this crap. And I am sure there are "hangovers" just like drinking, but so mind controlling you don't even know you have a hangover.

You definitely have some sort of chemical imbalance. Probably from toxins you injested in the past, whatever the case it sounds like either toxins in your system or toxins passed onto the womb from your parents.

I woould work on trying to use methods to get toxins out of your system.

* sweating them out, like in a teepee with a camp fire going.

* drink glass of water mixed with tumeric (two spoonfuls) and **** out toxins.

* research herbal or vitamins that remove toxins from your system.

* study a foreign language.

* paint pictures, coloring books, or learn even fine art.

* get a pet small dog.

Any kind of "detox" is pointless, because our liver and kidneys do that just fine. Do you have any links to proper scientific studies supporting your claim that "toxins" lead to mental health disorders, and somehow removing them can treat disorders? I highly doubt it.

 

[SpeaksForTheTrees]

What's wrong with you telling someone who is bi-polar that you hate meds and they should try something you pulled off the internet? What's wrong with you when you attack the doctors because you can't spell "schizophrenic?"
Granted, relaxation methods such as aromatherapy can help, and are encouraged as a part of behavioral therapy, but they won't actually help to treat bi-polar disorder.

That still doesn't make the UK comparable to the circumstances of DS's life. I'd want to kill myself, too, if I had to live in the Middle East. The UK is not really a repressive society, especially if you happen to be of a minority group like atheists. Richard Dawkins gets by just fine in the UK. He would have been killed by now-long ago-in some of places DS has lived and still lives. He has also stated other social concerns over things that are foreign and unthinkable in places like the UK. I don't envy his position, and I can only wish him luck in getting out and getting to a better environment.

My friends never spoke about thier feelings they just did it.
I overeacted , at 18 one of my friends hung himself with clothes line from an external door handle .
Another from his mothers roof rafters . Overdoses .Road accident death wishes
I realized now , they just did it no discussion.
Its good he can share with you guys.

 

[ShivaFan]

How about you study the subject some before giving such terrible advice! The absolute worst thing to do for a psychiatric patient is to tell them to quit taking their medications! You NEVER tell them their medications are poisoning them and is probably the cause of their problems! A detox plan WILL NOT treat bipolar disorder!

I have found that putting MORE chemicals in your system can CAUSE such issues, increase issues or add additional issues to what were misdiagnosis.

Today, meds are way over prescribed.

Actually, SSRIs for example. They are the real cause of most of these Columbine type incidents.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I have found that putting MORE chemicals in your system can CAUSE such issues, increase issues or add additional issues to what were misdiagnosis.

It doesn't cause things like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and encouraging people who have such disorders to quit their meds and resort to things that are proven to not work is very dangerous to the person you giving this "advice" to.

Actually, SSRIs for example. They are the real cause of most of these Columbine type incidents.

Total, utter, horse ****! Bullying causes Columbine type stuff. Marginalizing people causes violence. Poverty goes hand-in-hand with violence. Prozac does not.

 

[ShivaFan]

There is a pattern of Columbine incidents where buried in the reports you find the assailants were on SSRIs - psychiatric drugs induce violence in some, in fact those which have such behavior likely were predisposed by DNA and other factors - perhaps 90 percent might not but it is the 10 percent that screams we have to find a better way. Your swearing doesn't argue your point, it is baseless what you claim. Shooter Eric Harris was taking the antidepressant Luvox and Dylan Klebold was taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft,13 massacres over the past decade or so, resulting in 54 dead and 105 wounded – are all known that these are one's where the psychiatric drugs wer involved and by the way the mass murderer terrorists who hit the Taj Mahal Hotel Bombay were all given coffee laced with SSRIs and LSD before they committed the mirders, you have no idea what you are talking about nor is it bullying, nonsense.

We are over prescribing chemicals, as you grow older it takes longer for the chemicals-drugs to leave your system so as you continue taking the same prescribed dose you slowly start overdosing your brain and system. No one said go "cold turkey", but stop being a dupe of Big Pharma that is turning people into zombies.

 

[savagewind]

Doctors can be wrong when diagnosing. Some people here act as though he has bi-polar real bad. There are degrees of any imbalance.
He said what is causing it is his environment.
When I said there might be something causing his weakness you'll said, SHUT UP SAVAGE, but a person who lives in the city and has a desk job is weaker than a person who lives in the fresh air and has a physical job. That is what I meant.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There is a pattern of Columbine incidents where buried in the reports you find the assailants were on SSRIs - psychiatric drugs induce violence in some, in fact those which have such behavior likely were predisposed by DNA and other factors - perhaps 90 percent might not but it is the 10 percent that screams we have to find a better way. Your swearing doesn't argue your point, it is baseless what you claim. Shooter Eric Harris was taking the antidepressant Luvox and Dylan Klebold was taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft,13 massacres over the past decade or so, resulting in 54 dead and 105 wounded – are all known that these are one's where the psychiatric drugs wer involved and by the way the mass murderer terrorists who hit the Taj Mahal Hotel Bombay were all given coffee laced with SSRIs and LSD before they committed the mirders, you have no idea what you are talking about nor is it bullying, nonsense.

We are over prescribing chemicals, as you grow older it takes longer for the chemicals-drugs to leave your system so as you continue taking the same prescribed dose you slowly start overdosing your brain and system. No one said go "cold turkey", but stop being a dupe of Big Pharma that is turning people into zombies.

Is it the drugs, or depression, bullying, environment, and other things? SSRIs aren't causing violence, or we'd see a stronger correlation, because if 13 massacres have been carried out by those on them, that's hardly a correlation at all. From what I have found, 11% of recent mass shootings involved people under psychiatric care. People keep going on about "mental illness this" and "mental illness that" after a mass shooting, but they don't give a damn mental health any other time (this is a general trend), and no matter the illness or medications, those with a mental illness are for more likely to be the victims of violence than assailants.
And though I agree there is generally too much being prescribed, tell the "turning people into zombies" non-sense to people whose lives have improved and stabilized because of medications. Lots of people cannot function or live productive lives without them.
And yes, I do know what I'm talking about.

but a person who lives in the city and has a desk job is weaker than a person who lives in the fresh air and has a physical job. That is what I meant.

Not necessarily.

 

[Digital_Monk]

Anti-psychotics are a valuable component of my daily medicinal cocktail.

 

[AnnaCzereda]

Doctors have a duty to provide relevant information about side effects and risks.

Doctors are as much in the dark as their patients. A bipolar disorder is a very cool term, in reality it means that a doctor can't even diagnose you properly i.e., he knows **** about what is happening to your mind. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder too, for some reason I prefer the term neurosis. I was also diagnosed with paranoia, neurosis, depression and what not. Like the OP I also saw several psychiatrists, tried many meds, including those for treating psychosis. It doesn't mean the doctors are stupid. It means that not much is known about mental illnesses, what causes them and how to cure them. All we can do is to alleviate the symptoms. The general approach is to try various meds until you find out which one works best. It's a trial and error method. Every medicine has a long list of possible side effects so it's impossible to say until you try it. However, if the Debate Slayer is to lose sleep over that damn pill, then his doctor should remove it as there is no need to stress him more and add more worries to the already existing ones. The therapy shouldn't be more painful than the illness.

When I attended the group psychotherapy, some patients who were diagnosed with the bipolar disorder were treated with antidepressants. If DS doesn't have hallucinations, then anti-depressants might work for him better than anti-psychotics.

 

[FTNZ]

Doctors are as much in the dark as their patients. A bipolar disorder is a very cool term, in reality it means that a doctor can't even diagnose you properly i.e., he knows **** about what is happening to your mind. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder too, for some reason I prefer the term neurosis. I was also diagnosed with paranoia, neurosis, depression and what not. Like the OP I also saw several psychiatrists, tried many meds, including those for treating psychosis. It doesn't mean the doctors are stupid. It means that not much is known about mental illnesses, what causes them and how to cure them. All we can do is to alleviate the symptoms. The general approach is to try various meds until you find out which one works best. It's a trial and error method. Every medicine has a long list of possible side effects so it's impossible to say until you try it. However, if the Debate Slayer is to lose sleep over that damn pill, then his doctor should remove it as there is no need to stress him more and add more worries to the already existing ones. The therapy shouldn't be more painful than the illness.

When I attended the group psychotherapy, some patients who were diagnosed with the bipolar disorder were treated with antidepressants. If DS doesn't have hallucinations, then anti-depressants might work for him better than anti-psychotics.

Doctors have much better info than their patients, that's what they are trained for, and what they spend time staying up to date for.

Anti-depressants are usually quite bad for people with bipolar disorder. Mood stablisers are usually the first option, and then antipsychotics as an adjunct if needed and appropriate for the patient.

 

[Timothy Bryce]

First things first: I'm making this post primarily out of respect for a dear friend's opinion and concern. If it hadn't been for his/her input, I probably wouldn't have thought of making this thread.

Second, this is going to be a long post, so if you don't feel like reading all of it, I don't blame you. I would appreciate thoughts on this, however.

With that out of the way, let's get to the thread topic: for a few months, I have been taking a class of medications known as atypical antipsychotics to treat bipolar disorder. The first one I was on, Risperdal, made me unable to think clearly. I could handle some of the relatively minor but annoying side effects like frequent urination. I had to have my then-therapist change it, however, because of the inability to think clearly. Consequently, he changed my prescription to Zyprexa, which I'm in the process of withdrawing from due to concerns about some of the more serious side effects.

Today I saw a new therapist for the fourth time in less than two years. She refused to give me directions to taper off Zyprexa, saying that she couldn't "take part in a wrong thing." She insisted that I needed to be on antipsychotic medications, the class that has serious potential side effects, for treatment of my bipolar disorder. I told her that I was extremely worried about the more serious potential side effects of Zyprexa, such as tardive dyskinesia and diabetes. Her response was to remove Zyprexa from my prescription and add not one but three other antipsychotic medications. They are known in most countries as Clozapine, Abilify, and Seroquel, if I'm not mistaken. (I looked up the main ingredients to make sure I got the names right.)

Now, the main problem I see with this prescription is that all three medications still carry the risk of causing tardive dyskinesia and/or diabetes. Diabetes runs in my family on both the maternal and paternal sides, so that is not a risk to underestimate at all. Furthermore, I don't think the risk of developing tardive dyskinesia or any other movement disorder should be treated as small either (all highlighting mine):

Abilify:



Clozapine:



I couldn't find an exact figure for Seroquel on the same website, but the same problem is listed as a potential side effect:



Additionally for Seroquel (from the same link):



If the above statistics and other resources available online are to be believed, just one med of these carries a serious risk of developing a movement disorder that can be life-changing in many cases, not to mention diabetes. But the therapist didn't prescribe just one of these meds; she prescribed three, and if I follow her prescription, I'm supposed to take all three of them together.

This is where the problem comes in: I don't want to follow her prescription. I just don't want to put myself at risk of developing a serious movement disorder or diabetes, especially not this early in my life. The therapist told me that I would only have to be on these meds for 4-6 months, but when I asked her what would happen after I stopped taking them, she said, "You will be given an injection every two weeks to ensure that your condition remains stable." So she basically told me that I would indefinitely have this stuff in my body, thereby putting me at an increasing risk of the more serious side effects.

I'm not sure what to do from here. It's not like I enjoy living with frequent suicidal thoughts, but I'm worried so much about the possible side effects of these meds that I'm refusing to follow the prescription. The worry has literally kept me up at night on some days, and that is just from being on a low dose of one med of this class. The thought of being on three at the same time is just unbearable to me.

Please note that I'm not looking for medical advice, since I know that can't be reliably provided on an Internet forum. Instead, I'm just looking for general thoughts on the situation.

Thank you.

I've had some absolutely horrifying side effects from Seroquel. I hope I never take it again.

I know Mirtazapine isn't an anti-psychotic but I remember cutting it off cold turkey was a REALLY bad idea.

Personally, prescription meds are a source of great annoyance for me. At least with recreational substance use, the goals are very brief and temporary; the idea of taking drugs every day with the ultimate goal of causing a permanent change in someone's neurochemistry doesn't sit well with me.

If someone wants to go off their meds, they should consult their doctor and insist that they want out as fast as possible; if the doctor doesn't facilitate some form of tapering off or suggest that you meet those requests, get a new doctor. Maybe even report the old one.

 

[FTNZ]

I've had some absolutely horrifying side effects from Seroquel. I hope I never take it again.

I know Mirtazapine isn't an anti-psychotic but I remember cutting it off cold turkey was a REALLY bad idea.

Personally, prescription meds are a source of great annoyance for me. At least with recreational substance use, the goals are very brief and temporary; the idea of taking drugs every day with the ultimate goal of causing a permanent change in someone's neurochemistry doesn't sit well with me.

If someone wants to go off their meds, they should consult their doctor and insist that they want out as fast as possible; if the doctor doesn't facilitate some form of tapering off or suggest that you meet those requests, get a new doctor. Maybe even report the old one.

I don't think the goal is usually to cause a permanent change, but that might happen unintentionally. Most meds stop having an impact after you stop taking them. Daily meds are a necessary evil for many people - without them we would suffer much worse than the side effects or risks of the meds.

 

[Timothy Bryce]

I don't think the goal is usually to cause a permanent change, but that might happen unintentionally. Most meds stop having an impact after you stop taking them. Daily meds are a necessary evil for many people - without them we would suffer much worse than the side effects or risks of the meds.

Fair enough. I agree that the world does need a natural order of things in which potentially gun, knife or penis wielding characters with an axe to grind and nothing to lose should probably be subdued by some form of chemical regulation and that those regulations need to be authenticated on some form of neuro scientific basis. "Necessary evil" is a good way to put it; kinda like law enforcement

On a side note - I absolutely love your signature quote; Hitchens was probably the only public figure whose death actually upset me on a personal basis. I remember him saying those words through that increasingly gravelled voice before he and Dawkins had that embrace. Still chokes me up thinking about it.

Damn it.

 

[FTNZ]

Fair enough. I agree that the world does need a natural order of things in which potentially gun, knife or penis wielding characters with an axe to grind and nothing to lose should probably be subdued by some form of chemical regulation and that those regulations need to be authenticated on some form of neuro scientific basis. "Necessary evil" is a good way to put it; kinda like law enforcement

On a side note - I absolutely love your signature quote; Hitchens was probably the only public figure whose death actually upset me on a personal basis. I remember him saying those words through that increasingly gravelled voice before he and Dawkins had that embrace. Still chokes me up thinking about it.

Damn it.

Yeah Hitchens was an amazing man, and that quote sums up my way of looking at the world. *Raises glass of scotch*

 

[Timothy Bryce]

Yeah Hitchens was an amazing man, and that quote sums up my way of looking at the world. *Raises glass of scotch*

It sounds pretty quaint and stupid that I need to remind myself of this on a daily basis, but he really embodied the idea that the strongest amongst aren't those with the most money, power, sex or muscles (as striving for those things in the past has driven me insane; as no one ever really "arrives" there) but those who hold their individual personal constitutions and never let go of them while also yielding to the power of an acceptance of change and progress and flexibility and an understanding of the "fragility of truth".

I'll always remember his very concise answer to what he values most in the world as, what he really was; a professional contrarian: "an appreciation for irony" - the more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that this appreciation is, ironically, the presence of some metaphorical "act of god" so to speak. It seems to present itself to me in that way over and over in my adult life; and each time it appears to me more beautifully.

Thanks for triggering this in me today. I know it wasn't intentional, but it happened haha.

 

[Groeneappel]

I am not a doctor, but I know what are you talking about. I've been thorough that.
If you want to be better, you will have to take medications. Unfortunately, most people do feel better, but never feel really good.
All medications have side effects. The worst one is heavy addiction to medications. Clozapine is so addictive, that after 3 or 4 weeks you will have to take it for the rest of your life.
My advice: avoid any advice, especially from the Internet.

Hello Covellite,
Do you have experience taking clozapine? I am about to start taking clozapine but I am afraid it will not work. Before trying clozapine did you try other antipsychotics? Did they do anything for you?

Hope you will respond! Thank you!